Sunday, 28 July 2013

During my many years in Turkey I have witnessed
countless instances of weird conspiracy theories, national paranoia, and
distrust of any and all foreigners. But an incident reported recently in The Daily Telegraph of London has to
take first prize.

Residents of a village in eastern Turkey thought that a kestrel – a fairly large bird of prey –
soaring back and forth over their village could be an Israeli spy. Apparently
they caught the bird and found that it was wearing a metal band stamped with
the words ‘24311 Tel Avivunia Israel.’
The dreaded word Israel was all it
took to drive the local spy-catchers into high gear.

The offending bird was frog-marched off to a local
hospital where it was promptly registered as an ‘Israeli spy.’ I am not making
this up. It was only after intensive medical examination – including X-rays –
that the bird was identified as, well, just a bird. There were no microchips or
other devices that might transmit vital information about an extremely barren
part of Turkey back to the hated Mossad. All in all, I suppose the bird was
lucky it wasn’t slapped into an orange jump suit complete with ear muffs and
shipped off to Guantanamo.

An Israeli Spy?

I was reminded of my own experience in another small
eastern Turkish town many years ago where I was working as a teacher. Because I
was foreign, because I spoke a little Turkish, and because I sometimes went to
the capital Ankara the locals were convinced I was a foreign agent. The only
question was who I was working for – the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, the Russian
KGB, or the British MI 6. Every denial on my part only reinforced their
conviction. “He would deny it,
wouldn’t he?” Finally, a fellow teacher put the issue to rest one evening in
the local coffee house. “What in the name of Allah,” he asked “is in this small
town that is worth spying on? How many goats you have, Ahmet? Where you hide
your tools, Orhan? Is America so rich that it can afford to send people to
every small town in the world to find out useless information?” The others had
to nod their heads in reluctant agreement, somewhat annoyed that their
evening’s entertainment had been taken away.

All of this would be merely humorous if it didn’t
reflect the attitude of senior members of the Turkish government today. Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and certain members of the cabinet have been acting
ever more erratically while ranting and raving about foreign and domestic
conspiracies ever since large scale protests broke out in May. First it was
the perfidious, and always useful, foreign
agents, who were stirring up trouble. Then it was agents from the
opposition political parties. When the stock market and the local currency
began to slide then the well known – to the prime minister at least – interest rate lobby – was hard at work
undermining the Turkish economy. One cabinet minister pulled out the always
useful Jewish conspiracy to explain
the economy’s problems. These activities are all part of the larger conspiracy,
you see, organized by people who want to slow down Turkey’s growth.

Since taking office more than 10 years ago the prime
minister has travelled the world. Unfortunately, he seems to have learned very
little on his travels. His guiding principles seem to be the same ones he
developed growing up in one of Istanbul’s notoriously tough neighbourhoods –
never take a back step, absolutely never apologize, intimidate your opponents
by yelling loudly and fiercely. Compromise is not a word he recognizes. He also
learned that you never lose votes in Turkey by blaming foreigners for the
country’s problems. There was the famous case after the devastating earthquake
in 1999 when the nationalist health minister refused to accept foreign blood
donations that could dilute ‘pure’ Turkish blood.

The prime minister was furious about an open letter recently published in The Times of London that
sharply criticized his violent words and crude police behaviour during recent protests. The letter was signed by luminaries including Sean Penn, Susan
Sarandon, Ben Kingsley, the historian David Starkey, and many others. A more
rational politician would have shrugged this off and accepted the criticism as
the price of being in office. Not Tayyip Erdoğan. He went off the handle
accusing dark forces for being behind the letter. Demonstrating his complete
ignorance of the concept of freedom of speech he threatened to sue the
newspaper. One hopes that cooler heads in Turkey can prevent him from making a
complete fool of himself on the international stage.

No one is exempt from the paranoia of the witch hunt
against anyone thought to be supporting the protests against him. Doctors,
teachers, foreign and domestic journalists, economists, leading Turkish
companies, and professional organizations have all been targeted as agents of
those who want to undermine Turkey. Even Turkey’s largest company, the Koç
Group is not exempt from his fury. Not only is prime minister annoyed at Koç University
but he is furious that the group’s Divan Hotel offered shelter to people
running away from police tear gas during the demonstrations. Therefore, it came as
no great surprise when the group’s refinery Tüpraş was subjected to a surprise
tax audit. Only fanatical Erdoğan supporters believe this is a coincidence. And
the prime minister wonders why very few people are rushing to invest in Turkey.

Is Turkey's Largest Refiner On The Lengthening 'Enemies' List

Can anyone within the ruling Justice and Development
Party (AKP) curb this brutal and damaging abuse of power? Can President
Abdüllah Gül curb the prime minister’s behaviour before it undoes everything
the AKP has accomplished? Or, more properly, does he want to curb this behaviour? When you take on Tayyip Erdogan you better be ready for a bare knuckle battle. The answer will go a long way to
determining Turkey’s near-term future.

Monday, 8 July 2013

Sometimes
you have to feel sorry for Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan. You really
do. He has had a horrible summer so far.

First,
many thousands of his own citizens rebelled for days against his own narrow,
very limited vision of democracy and his arrogant assumption that he and only
he knows what is best for that complex country of almost 80 million people.

Second,
and most alarming, his fellow Islamists in Egypt get booted out of power. Days
of mass anti-government rallies culminated in the army removing the Moslem
Brotherhood government and attempting to install a more professional cadre.

Not everyone voted for the Egyptian president

Erdoğan’s
indignation kicked into high gear as he railed against this ‘shocking’ anti-democratic move. He and
his henchmen predictably blasted Western nations for not reacting for more
forcefully against the coup. To Erdoğan’s people, the Egyptian coup was nothing
more than the work of ‘anti-democratic’ forces around the world. They
conveniently ignore that there was nothing remotely democratic about the short
rule of the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt. In addition to being administratively
incompetent the Brotherhood froze all other elements of Egyptian society out of
the governing process. In short, they made it easy for their opponents to drive
them from power and forcefully deliver the message that real democracy only begins
at the ballot box. The most glaring example of this abuse of ballot box power was Adolf Hitler who was, after all, elected. It didn't take him long, however, to destroy the democracy that brought him to power.

Erdoğan
even went so far as to claim that the Moslem Brotherhood government had been
undermined by an economic boycott during its short time in power. I have no
idea where this groundless claim came from, but once again it shows his
complete disregard for any facts. But, as his reactions to the unrest in Turkey
show, he will simply make up facts to suit his thundering arguments. When all
else fails he and his sycophants can always fall back on the tried and true ‘Jewish, international, financial conspiracy’
theory to explain problems in Turkey and Egypt.

So
far he has remained tactfully silent about the support that Saudi Arabia and
Qatar have shown for the Egyptian army’s move. We shall also forget for the
moment Turkey’s own support for that notorious despot Omar al-Bashir of Sudan
(subject of an international arrest warrant for genocide in Darfur) or that
Erdoğan himself was the honoured recipient of the Gaddafi International Prize
for Human Rights just before that dictator was driven from power.

The
backdrop to Erdoğan’s unhappiness about the Egyptian situation is, of course,
Turkey’s own history of military intervention. He is all too familiar with the military
justifying its actions by saying it was protecting the secular character of
Turkey’s government against inroads by radical Islamists. His answer to this
risk was to lock up several leading military figures and throw the key away. As
usual he misses the fact that his own democratic credentials were severely
dented by jailing hundreds of his opponents for years without the benefit of a
trial – which might, after all, show that the charges were false or fabricated in
the first place.

No longer a real threat in Turkey

Erdoğan’s
erratic and increasingly shrill behaviour just might reflect the looming domestic
threats to his own legacy and the collapse of his grand vision of Turkey’s role
in the Middle East.

His ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
prides itself on Turkey’s rapid economic development during their rule. Up to a
point that’s true. But as more and more economists are noting, the wildly touted growth numbers don’t stand up to rigorous analysis. They are good, but
not great. Much has been said about the relatively low level of government
debt. Again, true as far as it goes. But the government spokesmen never mention
the explosion in private sector foreign debt. But most of all, Turkey’s
economic performance rests largely on the ephemeral confidence of international
investors who provide the $200 billion external financing that the country
needs every year. And nothing removes
that confidence faster than political unrest coupled with the merest hint of
monetary tightening by major central banks. International investors are
getting restless and starting to question the wisdom of their Turkish
investments. The stock market is down more than 20% since the end of May. The
currency has depreciated more than 10% since the beginning of the year and is
approaching the once-unthinkable level of 2:1 against the US dollar. As far as
the AKP is concerned a weakening economy is far more dangerous to the party’s
future than the almost non-existent threat of military intervention à la Egypt.

Not
too long ago Turkey’s smug foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was crowing about a
resurgent Turkey’s key role in the Middle East as a balance to the
deteriorating relations with the European Union. Now Turkey has to look long
and hard to find a Middle East ally beyond, of course, Hamas in Gaza. The new
rulers of Egypt will hardly appreciate Turkey’s loud support for the deposed
Moslem Brotherhood. Wealthy countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar will continue
to support the coup in Egypt regardless of Turkey’s objections. And who can
predict how Syria will turn out. Turkey has gambled heavily on the fall of
Basher al-Assad who, so far against all odds has avoided the fate of Gaddafi or
Mohammed Morsi.

Turkey
faces a critical period over the next several months with delicate Kurdish
negotiations, possible changes to the constitution, juggling the economy, and
meeting the demands of its own people for real democracy and inclusion. Has the prime minister learned anything from the unrest in his own country as well as Egypt? Will he be able to meet these challenges with something more than his usual bombast and conspiracy theories?

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About Me

I worked as a fund manager and investment banker in Turkey and the Middle East for 25 years. Over the years I have travelled extensively throughout the region and have met many of the leading government officials, business and cultural leaders. I am married to a Greek and now divide my time between London, Turkey, and an island in the Aegean.